


back to black

by rendawnie



Category: NCT (Band), WayV (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Prison, Blow Jobs, Boys In Love, Crimes & Criminals, Crying, Emotional Baggage, Explicit Sexual Content, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internal Monologue, M/M, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Minor Violence, Prison Sex, Romance, Semi-Public Sex, Smut, Swearing, They kinda cute tho, Unhealthy Relationships, possibly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:35:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24565483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendawnie/pseuds/rendawnie
Summary: Kun hums under his breath. His wrists ache from the leather straps that had bound him yesterday, during a particularly bad episode. They’d had to restrain him.Ten would have been proud,he thinks to himself.Inspired by the WayV "Awaken the World" teasers. Please heed the tags x
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun
Comments: 14
Kudos: 142





	back to black

“Kun. You can’t keep doing this.”

Kun frowns, but he’s not really listening to the doctor’s voice. He never does. He’s crouched on the floor, staring at the broken shards of mirror strewn around him, trying to find it. Trying to find the last piece of himself. _It was just here…_

He peers into a particularly large piece, and finds he doesn’t recognize the man staring back at him. _Not that one._

The doctor sighs. “I’ll have someone come and clean this up, but… I don’t know if you should have another mirror, Kun, if this is what’s going to happen to all of them.”

Kun hums under his breath. His wrists ache from the leather straps that had bound him yesterday, during a particularly bad episode. They’d had to restrain him. _Ten would have been proud,_ he thinks to himself.

He realizes the doctor is standing up now, instead of bent down to be on his level, and that he’s probably waiting for some sort of acknowledgement from Kun. Anything.

“I’ll clean it up,” he murmurs, using one finger to move the jagged pieces around, changing their positions and order, trying to make sense of them.

Another sigh sounds from above him. “Kun, I don’t think I can let you do--”

Kun’s head jerks up, his eyes suddenly boring holes into the doctor’s, relentless and black like his heart feels most days. “I said, I’ll clean it up,” he repeats, adding an unbothered sniff for good measure. They stay locked in place like that for a moment, staring each other down. The doctor breaks first. He always does.

“Fine,” he says finally, taking a step or two back with both palms raised in a gesture of something like apology. Kun glances away, swiping the back of his hand over his right cheek. It comes back a little bloody, but that’s not important right now. 

Kun glances at the old clock on the wall just outside his pretty padded room. 9:57 PM. _Almost time._ He gets to his feet smoothly, wiping the blood on his dingy white pants. “It’s late, doctor,” Kun says apathetically, crossing his arms over his chest. “Better get home, make sure your family’s safe.” It’s a completely manufactured, casual threat, but the doctor doesn’t know that. He only knows Kun, or at least Kun’s charts, his file, three times as thick as anyone else’s here, and that’s enough to make him pause.

“Wh--” he begins, but Kun doesn’t let him get far. They’re cutting it too close for comfort, now.

“Goodnight, doctor,” Kun says with finality, wandering back over to his small bed with its thin, overused mattress and flopping down carelessly, staring at the ceiling. He doesn’t look at the doctor again, but he can almost hear the sound of his lips settling into a straight, grim line. 

“I’ll have someone bring you some scrubs tomorrow, Mr. Qian,” comes the doctor’s voice, faking sternness now, and _oh._ They’re back to formalities again, Kun guesses. He’s scared the man back to that practiced place in his brain. _Good._ “You can’t just wear those bloody clothes the whole time you’re here.”

Kun chuckles at the strange shapes in the ceiling, rather than towards the doctor. It’s just water damage, done over years and years and never replaced or fixed, but Kun sees everything in them. He sees Ten. He sees guns, and knives. He sees… himself, maybe? _Hmm._ Maybe the mirror wasn’t the right place to look, after all. He’ll have to think about that some more, later. Much later.

He’s forgotten to answer the doctor again.

Kun licks his lips, a smirk pulling its way onto his face. It feels good. Fucking with someone like this. He’s good at it. “Yes, I can,” he replies after another moment, and there’s no response to that. Instead, the doctor makes some sort of noise that’s probably sheer frustration, filtered through his “professionalism” as much as it can be at this time of night, after he’s worked a twelve hour shift, and Kun listens to the sounds of his footsteps retreating. The heavy door of his cell opening, then slamming back into place, and then he’s _finally_ gone.

Another glance through the barred window tells him that it’s now 10:01. Kun can almost taste Ten on his tongue, his body starting to buzz with excitement. Ten always keeps his promises, see. He always shows up, right on time. He does whatever he needs to do for Kun. It’s just a little harder right now, when they’re both behind bars of various kinds. Most of the time, they find themselves in that situation because of what they’re willing to do for each other. He doesn’t know how Ten always manages to get out, or why he goes back most of the time. Why they both go back. Maybe it’s a comfort thing. Staying in the cages they’re used to.

At 10:09, Kun hears it.

Down the hall, a muffled gasp and a stifled yell, then a heavy _thud._ Kun can guess which guard it is. He can hear Ten laughing softly, hear his light footsteps continuing towards Kun’s cell. Kun grins, shooting off his mattress and flattening himself against his door, peering out the window. Waiting. He doesn’t have to wait long.

Seconds later, at exactly 10:10 on the dot, Ten strolls into his line of vision, shaking the pain that Kun knows comes from putting someone much larger than him down out of his fist. His heart is in his throat before he can give it permission. Ten is always gorgeous, but tonight, he’s really putting every other man Kun’s ever seen to shame. His hair is longer than Kun remembers, dirty blonde and falling in his eyes. He’s dressed in street clothes rather than prison orange. Kun wonders if he forgot that Ten was getting out, or if he got out early, for good behavior. _Unlikely._ He wonders if Ten is supposed to be out at all, but then Ten’s pressing his lips to the window of Kun’s cell in a tease of the kisses he’ll be getting soon, and Kun glances down to see the handle of the door rattling as Ten picks the multiple locks easily.

He steps back so that Ten can step in, a delicious little smile on his face and his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Hey, pretty boy,” Ten says softly. The door clicks shut, and then they’re on each other.

Kun pushes Ten against the door with one palm around his throat gently, and then he slots their lips together with desperation. He can’t quite remember how long it’s been -- a few weeks, maybe? -- since they saw each other, but however long it is, it’s _too_ fucking long. Ten is practically purring into Kun’s mouth, reaching up to run his fingers through Kun’s hair and Kun’s hands are sliding down to cup Ten’s backside, grinding their bodies together recklessly. Too fast. They have at least thirty minutes before anyone else will walk down the hall, before someone else will find what Ten did.

Putting enough space between he and Ten for them to talk, Kun finds his voice enough to ask, “What did you do to him?” Ten giggles, deft fingers working at the zipper of Kun’s pants until he can get one hand inside and wrap around him, and Kun’s head drops onto his shoulder, a low moan punching up through his throat and out from between his lips.

“I didn’t _kill_ him or anything,” Ten replies, and Kun can tell that he’s trying to sound wry and unbothered by what he feels between Kun’s legs, but they know each other far too well for Kun to believe it. Ten hisses when Kun shoves his stupidly hot mesh shirt up his chest just so he can drag his nails down the smooth skin, and then he goes on. “He’s just gonna take a nice nap,” he adds, and god if it doesn’t sound almost _innocent_ coming out of Ten’s mouth. 

Kun groans as Ten starts to stroke him to hardness, managing to get a bit of a laugh out as well. 

“You’re crazy,” he says.

“You’re beautiful,” Ten answers.

Kun knows he means it, that he always means it. No one had ever told Kun he was beautiful until Ten did, and after that, he was the only one Kun wanted to hear it from. He knows they’re _both_ fucking crazy, and maybe that’s good. Maybe that’s why it works.

Ten’s on his knees a moment later, kneeling on the hard, unfinished concrete floor and taking Kun down his throat before Kun’s even fully processed that he’s about to do it. He’s leaning against the door now, breathing fast and heavy and pulling at Ten’s hair and Ten is making these _noises_ like he fucking _loves_ it, and it’s so much. Ten is always so fucking much. It might be Kun’s favorite thing about him.

Kun swallows hard, trying to think. “Did you get out?” he manages between whimpers and moans, fucking Ten’s face for a second and then letting him off so he can answer.

“Mmm,” Ten replies, wiping his mouth on his arm and grinning up at Kun. “Tuesday.” Kun has no fucking clue what day it is.

Kun laughs, biting back a choked out sound when Ten starts sucking on his balls. “Why didn’t you just come for a regular visit, then?” he wonders. “Did they tell you when I’m getting out?” Honestly, right now, with his dick down Ten’s throat and completely high on the way they make each other feel, Kun can’t even remember the events that led to this particular incarceration.

Ten hums around his length before he pulls off again. “A regular visit? That’s no fun, baby,” he chides good-naturedly, that slightly unhinged gleam that Kun loves back in his eyes.

Kun scoffs. He’s kind of right, and they kind of both know it. They’ve never done anything the _regular_ way, not in the whole five years they’ve known each other. From meeting during an _alleged_ arson incident, to bouncing in and out of institutions (Kun) and state prisons (Ten), nothing about them has ever been normal. All Kun knows is that Ten is the only person who’s ever understood him, the only one who’s ever cared enough about him to understand when he goes a little insane from time to time, and Ten says Kun’s the only one he’d gladly die for, so Kun figures that’s what matters.

Ten’s been busy while Kun got lost in thought, he realizes suddenly. He’s gotten Kun’s pants down around his ankles, and his own are in the same position. He’s gotten off his knees and has turned back to face the door, bracing himself up with both palms, and, Kun notices belatedly, he’s been grinding his ass against Kun’s wet cock, rolling his hips and Kun is a bad boyfriend for ignoring him. He frowns, reaching down to wrap his palms around those rolling hips, and Ten lets out a relieved whine. “Thought I’d lost you there,” he says quietly, and Kun can tell he wants it to sound light-hearted, but he means it. He knows Ten worries about him all the time, that they worry about each other. Well, Kun tries, when he’s having good brain days.

Today isn’t so bad.

“Never,” he growls in Ten’s ear, closing his teeth around the pierced cartilage and sliding his cock all the way home. He doesn’t bother asking if Ten was ready, or if he was prepped. This is far from the first time they’ve been in this exact situation, although sometimes the backdrop is different. Sometimes they’re in one of Ten’s incredibly unhygienic prison cells. Sometimes the police catch up with Kun in a different city altogether. Once, just once, they were in a real bed, alone, in Kun’s apartment with all the time in the world. Kun thought he would miss that once it was over, but he really doesn’t. He couldn’t, when he still gets to have Ten just like this, pliant and open for him, taking his cock like he’s meant for it, mewling with every thrust Kun aims into him.

From this position, Kun can see the clock on the wall again. It’s been almost fifteen minutes since Ten arrived, which means they only have another fifteen at best. He tries to stay in the moment, still stroking his throb into Ten’s tight, wet walls in an increasingly frantic rhythm. He loses focus for a minute, retreating into his head to think about his earlier problem again, about finding the missing piece of himself, and then all of a sudden, he thinks he gets it.

It’s Ten.

Ten is what makes him whole. Ten is the one that keeps him together, that keeps _them_ together. Ten is all Kun needs.

He lets out a strangled, hiccuped little squeak that he would be embarrassed about in another situation. Ten stops pushing his hips back to meet him, throwing a glance over his shoulder. Kun makes his eyes concentrate on that glance, makes himself look at Ten’s face, shiny with sweat and his hair stuck to his forehead. He makes himself look at the only thing that matters to him in the entire fucking world, and then he’s blinking back a few tears and Ten is looking more and more concerned.

Carefully, he slips away from Kun, turning around in his grasp to cup his boyfriend’s face, eyes wide and curious as he blinks up at Kun. “You okay?” Ten asks, out of breath and incredible.

Kun glances away, because sometimes Ten is so much. Too much, almost. “Yeah,” Kun breathes down towards their feet, looking at Ten balancing on his tiptoes and feeling so, _so_ fucking fond. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he repeats with a short nod, gulping in a breath of air. He still can’t look at Ten, but he knows Ten is going to make him.

And he does, tilting Kun’s face up so their eyes meet again. “What is it?” Ten questions next. “What is it, baby?”

Kun swallows hard, trying to work around the lump that’s appeared in his throat. “I just… I…” he tries, his fingers digging into Ten’s hips one at a time, into the flesh and back out, and if Kun were smarter, if he were as smart as Ten, and maybe a little less crazy, he would figure out a way to make his fingers spell out what he wants to say, so his mouth doesn’t have to. But he isn’t, and Ten knows him well enough anyway.

Ten smiles, brushing Kun’s hair off his forehead with so much tenderness that Kun loses his breath temporarily. He stares into his boyfriend’s eyes helplessly, willing him to understand, hoping that he _gets it._

With a small chuckle, Ten touches their noses together, an unexpectedly sweet gesture when they’re in this mess, when they’re _always_ in this mess and most of the time it’s Kun’s fault. “I know. I know, baby,” he whispers, dropping little kisses at the corners of Kun’s lips. They’re small, but they speak so loud, so loud that they drown out the other voices in Kun’s head until it’s all just _Ten, Ten, Ten,_ and then Ten tells Kun he loves him, that he’ll love him forever, no matter what. He tells him that it’s okay. That they’re okay. And Kun believes him.

He puts himself back together as quick as he can, because their time is running out. He always feels more lucid around Ten than any other time, and he uses that rare clarity to sort his thoughts out and put them in the right boxes, and he leaves one open for Ten. For both of them, so they can fill it up to bursting before Ten has to slip away.

Ten kisses him one more time, and then his hands are on Kun’s shoulders and Kun is gathering Ten into his arms and letting Ten’s legs wrap around Kun’s waist, letting his cock fuck back inside Ten one more time, and when Ten bites down on Kun’s bottom lip, they both come.

Ten buries his head in Kun’s chest, and through the haze of his orgasm, Kun thinks about how this is the only time Ten ever blushes. How it takes him to a place of such vulnerability that he still has trouble showing it to Kun, because he was taught all his life that it wasn’t allowed. Kun tugs on Ten’s hair. He makes him look. He makes him face it head on, because that’s what they always do for each other. They don’t hide, ever. Ten’s trying to put on a brave face as he shakes and trembles in Kun’s arms while Kun shoots him full of cream, but it falls apart when Kun smiles and tells Ten he’s perfect. When he hears those words, Ten forces out this laugh that squeezes at Kun’s cock and milks every drop out of him, and he can’t hold on hard enough to hold Ten anymore, lowering them both to the ground as carefully as he can.

They stay there like that for a while, Ten in Kun’s lap and Kun softening inside him. When Ten finally looks up after a minute, looks up and glances around Kun’s padded cell, he laughs a little, genuine amusement, and Kun is so glad. “What the fuck did you do?” Ten asks, his eyes falling on all the broken glass from the mirror that Kun smashed earlier that day. All the long scratches he left on the walls with the sharpest pieces. For the first time, he registers the bloody cuts on Kun’s palms where the glass dug into his skin. Kun watches Ten kiss every single gash, and then he decides not to lie. They can never really lie to each other.

“I was looking for the rest of myself,” he says simply, raggedly, leaning his head back against the door. His throat is _so_ dry.

Ten clicks his tongue reproachfully, tossing the bloody piece of mirror glass that he was examining away before he turns back to Kun. His hands are gentle on Kun’s cheeks now, almost as gentle as his lips on Kun’s closed eyelids.

“Silly,” Ten exhales, kissing each of Kun’s eyebrows in turn. “You knew I was coming. You don’t have to look anywhere else.”

Kun smiles despite himself, feeling sated and happy, and he opens his eyes slowly, squinting a bit in the harsh fluorescent lights of his cell. He studies Ten quietly, even though they don’t have time and he shouldn’t. His gaze flits from Ten’s hair to his upturned nose to his long neck and then back again, honing in on the look in Ten’s eyes. Kun blinks, because he wasn’t expecting what he sees. To anyone else, Ten might look happy, if a little tired. There’s definitely satisfaction written all over his face, and Kun is glad for that. But…

“Ten,” Kun starts, glancing up to the clock again. It’s 10:45. Their time is almost up. _Any minute now…_

Ten doesn’t answer.

“Ten,” Kun says again, a bit more urgently. “You didn’t really get out on Tuesday, did you.” He doesn’t make it a question, because it isn’t one. He knows better, right now. He’s lucid, right now.

Ten has the decency to look ashamed, even if he thinks hiding his face from Kun will make it harder to notice. “I just needed to see you,” he mumbles, and Kun sighs. He lifts Ten off of him, pulls up his pants for him and does the zipper and button back up affectionately, almost amused by the whole situation, suddenly. Just… not quite amused enough to let Ten catch extra time on his sentence for this. 

Together, they stand up, and Ten picks the lock on Kun’s cell twice as quick as he did before. Twice as quick as when they had time. Kun makes sure he’s on the other side before he pushes the door closed. He can hear the sounds of the guard Ten knocked out being found, knows he has to let Ten go. 

Kun presses a kiss to the dirty glass behind the bars of his door, mouthing _go_ when he leans back the smallest bit, and Ten looks at him one last time before he does. That look is full of everything that’s between them, Kun thinks: all the love, the years, the bad times and the good times, as few and far between as they are, and he knows Ten will be back. He’ll find a way to get another message to Kun. He’ll find a way for them to be together again. 

As quickly as Kun pushed Ten out of his cell, he disappears. Kun’s not worried about him getting caught. Ten’s a lifer, a career criminal. It’s in his bones, this way of life, and Kun knows that Ten’s life will always include him, no matter what. And maybe today, that’s enough. Kun feels sharper, more present. He can feel Ten on him, and he hopes he’ll feel him for days. Ten is all that holds him together, sometimes. They hold each _other_ together.

Kun’s still thinking about everything when another face entirely presses itself against the small window of his door, and he stumbles back reflexively, letting the not-quite-as-unconscious guard in. She doesn’t even notice that the lock was picked, Kun realizes smugly. That’s how good Ten is.

“Did you see what happened?” the woman asks briskly, face set in hard lines and exhaustion from doing this job for years.

Kun shrugs dismissively. “Something happened?” he asks, making sure his voice sounds as neutral as it possibly can. It works, because the guard sighs in annoyance and starts to move on to the next cell. Kun stops her with an equally neutral request.

“Oh, ma’am? Could you have someone come clean this mess up? I didn’t mean to make it,” he says, giving her a winning, toothy smile as she stares at him in disbelief. “Oh, and I could really use a pair of scrubs. These clothes are, uh…” Kun trails off, lifting his jacket off his body with a totally manufactured look of disgust, then letting it back down with two fingers. “...kind of gross. Y’know,” he finishes. He flashes her another grin, just for good measure.

The guard frowns, something like suspicion passing over her features, but, Kun notices, it disappears just as quickly. “Alright, Mr. Qian,” she answers, backing up a step or two. “I’ll let someone know.”

Another fake grin pushes its way onto Kun’s face. “Thank you, ma’am,” he singsongs, backing away from the door, too, further back into his messy cell. 

Unlike this new guard, he doesn’t break eye contact. He lets his gaze sear into her, just like Ten taught him. _Always look them dead in the eye. Never look away first, or they’ll know you’re guilty,_ he’d said. _They’ll know just how broken you are. How broken they’ve made you._

Kun smiles.

_Don’t give them that power._

“Have a nice night, ma’am,” he says. 

_Never let them know how much it hurts._

“Yeah,” she mutters, darting off to the next cell, finally.

Kun licks his lips, and Ten is still there with him.

_That’s the only way to win._

Kun sleeps like a baby that night. 


End file.
